Guys! Guys! Whaddup? 22 April 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Obama.

Guys! What’s up? Down? Around? Found an ‘American value’ yet that is sufficiently rubbery for the lot of you? Hmm?

I think they are all playing each other… Cheney is having the time of his life! What a shame! He gets to dribble ObRama The Great around like a basketball.

Myself, I am for kneecapping the lot of them. Side by side. Knee joints shattered for life, long steel nails right thru the knees to the wood floor below. Leave them there. They can chat to each other. Compare notes.

Like this:

Related

A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Obama apparently believed he could avoid what is now happening. In the weeks during which he was weighing the release of the torture memos, there was a vigorous debate within his administration. There was, according to a senior official, considerable support among Obama’s advisers for the creation of a 9-11 Commission-style investigation as an alternative to releasing the Justice Department memos. But Obama quashed it.

“His concern was that would ratchet the whole thing up,” the official said. “His whole thing is, <b.I banned all this. This chapter is over. What we don’t need now is to become a sort of feeding frenzy where we go back and re-litigate all this.” …snip…

Yeah so relieved. they should all call us when they get all the stories straight.

The federal government said yesterday that it will allow the sale of the morning-after pill Plan B without a prescription to women as young as 17, a move that would make the contraceptive available to minors for the first time without a doctor’s order.

The Food and Drug Administration took the action to comply with a judge’s ruling last month holding that the agency’s 2006 decision to limit availability of the controversial contraceptive to women 18 and older was invalid and politically motivated.

In a statement posted on its Web site, the FDA said it had notified the company that makes Plan B that it will approve sales to 17-year-olds at the manufacturer’s request — a request a company spokeswoman said it will make.

The FDA’s decision was welcomed by women’s health and family planning advocates, who had challenged the agency’s original decision in federal court.

“It’s a good indication that the agency will move expeditiously to ensure its policy on Plan B is based solely on science,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the groups that challenged the FDA’s age limitations in court. “It’s time the FDA restores confidence in its ability to safeguard the public health and put medical science first.”

ALBANY — Long-stalled efforts to permit the medicinal use of marijuana in this state appear to have a good chance of passage before lawmakers end their session in June. It would make New York the 15th state to legalize the drug for medical reasons.

Advocates say they believe the Democratic- controlled Senate and Assembly have the votes to pass legislation permitting qualified patients to grow their own marijuana plants, or obtain the drug on the streets or through a state-sanctioned dispensary.Gov. David A. Paterson also is said to be supportive of the legalization.

“It’s looking pretty darn good,” Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat and Health Committee chairman, said of the bill’s chance to become law this session.

The lawmaker, who has sponsored the measure for years, renewed a public push Tuesday, using the cases of two New Yorkers who have turned to marijuana to relieve their chronic pain as evidence of the need for the bill.

“I’m looking for all the help we can get to get this passed,” said Joel Peacock, a Buffalo resident and self-described conservative, who turned to the drug in the past to help with severe pain he still feels from a 2001 car accident.

The effort was jump-started by the Obama administration’s decision in February to stop raids on marijuana-dispensing centers in California, where medical marijuana is legal. U. S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. signaled that federal prosecution would cease in states that legalize medical marijuana, even though U. S. law bans the drug’s use.

Well, they didn’t really, but it would be funny if the fake PR put pressure on them.

If they had any sense (and were not in league with the traffickers) they would just declare CA a MJ Free Zone. Set limits, encourage small growers, Med MJ, simple and direct ‘filed with everyone who matters’ permit system, etc… because it is a big electrical and water draw… and small growers would benefit very directly…. and leave us alone.

The vanilla tumult over torture and “brutal interrogation,” as the New York Times puts it, is a never-ending source of raw amusement, the kind that sears your gut and makes you cough blood. Obama, ever the evenhanded manager, now says that he won’t stand in the way should someone else bring criminal charges against the previous regime.

Wow. What courage. Is there anything our Father Leader can’t equivocate? At least he still speaks better than Bush. (Liberal APPLAUSE sign flashing.) Am I right? Ladies, you know it’s true!

The day that senior Bush officials, like Bush and Cheney themselves, take the perp walk in chains and orange jumpsuits is the day I publically register as a Democrat, don an Obama t-shirt, and burn a stack of “Savage Mules.” Of course, for justice to be seriously administered, many leading Dems would also have to be charged, not only for supporting or silently tolerating torture and rendition, but for beating the war drums over Iraq, the broken, bloody stage where much of this official “concern” originated with the Abu Ghraib photo sessions. This would naturally include the Vice President and Secretary of State, whose firing, arrest, and prosecution would show just how impartial American justice truly is, a shining counterexample to those lawless states that allow piracy to go unpunished.

But none of this is gonna happen. In American politics, talking and posturing about “justice” is about as good as it gets. Oh, maybe some lower echelon cog will be sacrificed to keep the charade going, but the real crime lords will avoid any jail time or serious censure as Obama urges us to “get past” this “aberration” to our noble system of governance. His slow motion pose about not impeding criminal investigations is simply more imperial pantomime — chum bait for the rubes.

It sounds like h was brought in with near automatic tenure. It was an older woman caller to KGO… said she complained, called the university, when they hired him… her words were “I complained that he be hired, and additionally as a tenured professor”… and she added he is on sabbatical now, lecturing, I think she said, down at Chapman School of Law in SoCal… “spreading his gospel” as she put it.

With the release of the U.S. Senate’s report on the Bush Administration torture program, it is now incontrovertibly clear – and officially established by the highest, most respectable Establishment institutions – that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and a host of other top officials deliberately, willingly, and with malice aforethought, established a system of interrogation using brutal techniques that they knew were against the law. Hence the need for the torture memos that attempted to give retroactive legal cover for atrocities that were already taking place at the orders of the White House and the Pentagon. They were also told repeatedly that these tortures were ineffective at producing useful intelligence. (For more detail, see the excellent stories at Salon.com here and here.)

What’s more, it is now undeniable that they began this program long before they had captured even one “high-profile al Qaeda detainee,” and that they were using these heinous techniques not in a desperate bid to save the nation from further attacks – which has long been their preening, self-serving claim – but instead to produce spurious data about the non-existent link between Iraq and al Qaeda. In other words, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ordered their minions to beat and torment captives in order to get them to say something a – anything – that could then be used to “justify” a war of aggression that these grand statesmen had been planning long before the September 11 attacks.

You cannot disentangle the torture program from the war of aggression in Iraq – nor from the illegal wiretapping program, the corrupt war profiteering, and all the other degradations of liberty and law that have been so accelerated in the past eight years. They are all of a piece, part and parcel of a plan to expand and entrench America’s “unipolar domination” of world affairs with a thoroughly militarized state led by an unaccountable, authoritarian “Unitary Executive.”

This is one reason why Barack Obama is so obviously reluctant to tug on the torture thread too hard. If you tear it out, with full-scale prosecutions and top officials locked up behind bars, the whole rotten skein would fall apart. Once you start genuinely subjecting government officials – including security apparatchiks and military brass – to the full extent of the law, there would be no end to the unraveling: senators, contractors, representatives, bureaucrats, generals, lobbyists, judges, corporate chiefs – the whole edifice of Establishment power would be shaken to the core as its leading lights went down, one after the other.

Thus the mere act of applying the ordinary, bourgeois laws of the land as they stand right now would constitute a world-shaking revolution, an overthrow of the existing order every bit as radical as any ideologue’s dream of mass uprising. It would be, in effect, a re-founding of the Republic – and the end of the empire, which cannot survive without continual war, lawless rule and endless corruption.

And that’s why we will not see Barack Obama follow such a course. He might, in the end, have to pull much harder on the torture thread than he wants to; as we noted yesterday, a few upper-level middlemen might have to be offered up as scapegoats to quell the PR tempest. But he has already demonstrated, over and over, that he has no intention or desire to unravel the skein of imperial power. Indeed, he is trying to strengthen that skein and bind it more tightly, as we have seen in his various court cases seeking to uphold or even expand authoritarian powers claimed by Bush, in his escalation of the Afghan war, in his continual expansion of attacks in Pakistan, in his servile coddling and protection of the CIA, and in his celebration of the “success” and “extraordinary achievement” of the war crime in Iraq.

This is one of the most unbelievably stupid inventions I have ever seen. I wonder if they can arrange to redirect the exhaust in such a way that it would cause the thing to self-destruct. Maybe we could arrange to have John Yoo demonstrate.

My take? Let see.
In 2006, plenty of make-believe real estate money floating around – Daddy , who is a New York Real Estate magnate, buys 25 year old son New York Newspaper on the brink that is heavily dependent on Real Estate Advertising.

Propeller Head Son Jared- who’d be lucky getting a newspaper route if it wasn’t for Dad, instead is called “Publisher” , speaks of Building New Media Empire, parties with hot chicks and sycophants. Wants to be like connected Dad, more than just a dabbler in Democratic Politics. Registers 10 Web Domains for 9 bucks apiece. Calls them part of his “Nationwide” Expansion into State political Sites .

Announces the Debut of Politicker.com, driving confused souls to Politico, which it does, no-one ever actually visiting his site with any degree of frequency to actually know the difference.

In 2007, Goes All In on Commercial Political Blog Investment, a power play for Media and Dem attention, times the market perfectly to coincide with a BlogMarket approaching the enthusiasm of people who discover a sent-home turd in their preschooler’s backpack. Not to mention candidates Astroturfing their own blogs, and the Pioneer Bloggers are just about ready to return to Pioneer Life.

Pubey the Publisher parties on tho with hot chicks and Cad Pols as long as Dad is willing to foot the Bill – he isn’t – and the Staff at the newspaper is expected to miraculaously man the sinking ship…
Which, uh, now unlashing lifeboats and donning jackets, they DON”T.

::
Accompanying the story, The NYT Graphics Editor ,
to no small delight I’m sure, chose a priceless 2007 pic of young Jared “Publisher” Kushner over at the Observer with the seasoned editor,
Peter “I Can’t Believe I Work For This Idiot” Kaplan.

Catholics believe in large families… however which way… Now Lugo fathered THREE:twisted:

SAN LORENZO, Paraguay — Fernando Lugo, the Roman Catholic bishop turned president of Paraguay, risked becoming a soap opera caricature after a third woman emerged Wednesday claiming that he’s the father of her child.

The third claim within two weeks shook Lugo’s eight-month-old government and left Paraguay buzzing that more women may yet step forward.[YUM! — Mcat]

The latest news tarnished the storybook tale of a leftist president who unexpectedly shot to power last year after spending years as a bishop challenging entrenched interests on behalf of his poor parishioners.

Lugo, 57, canceled a one-day trip to Washington on Wednesday but didn’t comment publicly on the latest claim. …snip…

hmm More shoes…. er children, to drop apparently:

Alfredo Boccia, a political columnist in Asuncion, said that the three cases had rocked Lugo’s government but hadn’t yet plunged it into a political crisis.

“Nobody is talking about impeachment,” Boccia said, which would require a two-thirds vote in Congress, he added. “But I don’t know how many more children can come out before the situation gets very serious for Lugo. I’m not so sure that this (the latest claim) will be the last one.”

During last year’s presidential campaign, responding to rumors, Lugo denied that he’d fathered any children.

LOL Nobody is talking about impeachment,” Boccia said, which would require a two-thirds vote in Congress, he added. “But I don’t know how many more children can come out before the situation gets very serious for Lugo.”

Some of it human, Death of his “Mum”, then “Pup”, still trading on growing up whacked tho. Much of the
still-working-his-shit-out, parting-shot dish is there but frankly, not all that alarming,
given what one could surmise from such a home:

So….medieval . And isolated.
This, saying much:

That afternoon, Pup was going to Mass. I said I’d come. Normally, I didn’t. Normally, when in Connecticut on a Sunday, I would discreetly make myself scarce around this time, when he would gather up the Hispanic staff and drive to St. Mary’s Church, where a complaisant priest would say a private Latin Mass for him.

Poor orphan baby, that Chris.
So touching. 55+ years old now ….
and living yet another generation’s very fortunate life established via violent pillage in Mexico, and Venezuala as Standard Oil’s Catholic ‘In” … a hundred years ago. And secured by his trustfundarian father’s loathing of any hint of Oil divestment as U.S Policy: WFB’s quite natural CIA propogandist retainership for all those years ( salary and mere provincial butchery no longer an issue. The squabbling among Empire’s heirs, Rockefeller coupon clipper’s like WFB sniffing Nelson, preferring Goldwater instead as part of the equation, too…)

C Buckley’s piece has none of THAT mess.
Mildly entertaining in parts tho…
Mum sounds like she was quite the character….

Let’s have a Special Counsel investigate Obama and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for Obstruction of Justice. It is afterall, an ongoing DOJ case involving our National Security and Intelligence Community. Why not? What conversations took place between the White House and DOJ wrt to the case? Between Rahm Emanual and Holder or AAG Lenny Breuer?

Seriously – why SHOULDN”T there be calls for an Investigation?I hope the press beats. there. ASS. over this.

It’s plain as Day what the Administration is doing-despite Bush’s Denials. Oh I’m sorry- I meant Obama -
it’s just that so LITTLE has CHANGED.

Investigate! Call the Press! Even Get Marcy Wheeler on it!{ Oh andDonate to Marcyhit the Rec List at 30 comments!}{But ACT NOW! It’s been up there for hours, Few takers and is about to scroll off at 90 comments! ACT NOW!!! Before she’s forced to compete for the Indignity of the Meatier MeatHead Environmental Award!!!}:lol:

Last I paid attention (some years ago) she had a a job, if she ever detailed it I missed it, that involved a fair amount of international travel, mostly to the East, Asia. AND she was a fairly high up, repeat performance Dem party volunteer as the dreary elections roll around.

She also was able to be available for weeks for the Hamsher Wheeler whatever at the Wilson Hoo Hoo trial. Or whatever that was… FDL funded her book on that merry-go-round.

At a border conference in Washington, DC, on Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was giving an interview with CBC’s Neil Macdonald when she upset Canadian government officials by seeming to reinforce the false story that 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. through Canada.

The former Arizona governor was asked by Macdonald why there was a “need for same level of security on the Canadian border as on the Mexican border given two drastically different realities?”

Responded Napolitano, “the law says the borders are the borders and these are the kind of things that have to be done at the borders.” She added that “Canada is not Mexico, it doesn’t have a drug war going on, it didn’t have 6,000 homicides that were drug-related last year. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.”

Asked Macdonald: “Are you talking about the 9/11 perpetrators?”

“Not just those but others as well,” Napolitano said.

But the 9/11 perpetrators did not come into the US from across the Canadian border. …snip…

Testifying before New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in February, Lewis said “it wasn’t up to me” to reveal Merrill’s fourth-quarter losses as they were becoming apparent in December, the newspaper said, citing a deposition transcript.

I saw a headline this am about Obama taking on the credit card companies. Obama’s doing this. Obama’s doing that. Obama’s doing everything. Whatever happened to…you know…other people in the government doing things? Like congresspeople, for example? The various dept secretaries? Other govt officials?

Strangely enough I have managed to hear this actually discussed at least a couple of times by reporters… the first was with Jeanne Cummings of Politico on the Gordon Petersen weekend roundtable, a few weeks ago. She asked, ”is there no one else in the admin who can sell the stuff”… does it always have to be Obama. Cannot remember who answered her, might have been Evan Thomas. Apparently not, polling and whatever else (so they say) indicates he is the best “seller” of whatever the admin wants to push. She answered, well that is a problem, other people need to be developed to take that posiition. Everybody kind of shrugged, like ”well, yeah but”…

And Helene Cooper on the Matthews show this past weekend. Said the same but more approvingly… and she seemed to indicate they DO think he is Jesus. With him pushing the used cars, the lot will be empty soon.

Seems a risky deal to me, but hey. Their problem.

Frankly I think it keeps him busy, in the public eye, which he loves and they could give a shit about how risky it might be.

In the case of the dem congresspeople, like Leahy, they’re basically not going to pursue any progressive program or investigation of crimes or anything else unless the R’s do it first. Fucking hopeless. Always something to hide behind. No action on climate unless China and India do whole hog first, and then it will be “well we can’t act unless Estonia and Nigeria go first.”

Partly because everything is seen as a loss, everything is viewed through the prism of a philosophy of scarcity and greed. No contemplation of the benefits. We didn’t wait for China and India to go the moon first.

All the tv shit revolves around why doesn’t Obama prosecute, etc. Really? Do they expect him to conduct the prosecution in person?

When I was over at dkos this week checking out the torture threads, there was a huge debate about “prosecutorial discretion” – the pro-Obama crew saying that he had the right to grant CIA torturers immunity because he had that discretion. Well, excuse me but he’s not a prosecutor, he’s the president. So what right does he have to grant anybody immunity?

If he does have that right things are much more fucked up with the supposed 3-branched system than I thought.

Well word is that Israel and US Jewish interests lobbied Clinton pretty hard to pardon Pollard, convicted in the late 80s for spying against the US and for Israel. A US citizen .. probably a dual, I forget now. but Clinton just was too scared to do it, from what I have read. Bill went for the Marc Rich pardon but balked at the Pollard one. Sothere’s always political considerations… Bush did some finagle with whatshisname… cannot think of his name.. in Cheney’s shop, friend to Judith Miller. He “commuted” the sentence rather than pardon.

Something, I have not read anything much that clarifies, turned ObRama around on his blythe dismissal of any prosecutorial investigation of the torture mess… but something did. Of course to anyoen with half a brain he looks a fool.

Then again, I don’t see much coming out of it… Leahy imo is a tired old sold out blow hard. End of story.

The horse left that barn about fifty years ago, and the ratchet only goes one way. Obama isn’t going to reverse it and it is frankly ridiculous to expect him to. It actually does matter who is in congress and we are cursed with the congress we deserve.

well congress has no real power. Shakey at best for decades. None other than George Kennan wrote a letter to the Wapo, short and sweet, during the Bush years, around early 2004 that the greatest danger was the growing power of the presidency.

It IS up to Ob. But they, whoever makes it ot the god forsaken office, are all bought sold and OWNED. Just like congress.

he can PARDON them, but in order to do that the Bushies and torturers would have to admit guilt, first. That’s the dodge Ford used to avoid making Nixon actually pay for his crimes, but it is a poltical way to slap them on the wrist AND “moving forward”.

Defense Secretary Backed Release of CIA Memos
Robert M. Gates indicates that he supported the release of sensitive memos on detainee interrogation methods last weekbecause he viewed their ultimate disclosure as inevitable

I had pretty much stopped reading Ray McGovern… too soft on Ob. Which he dials back here.

[T]he North/Gonzales Memorial Shredder

One issue of some urgency has been overlooked in the media, but probably not by those complicit in torture by the CIA and other parts of the government. That issue is the need to protect evidence from being shredded. There has been no sign that either Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair or CIA Director Leon Panetta has proscribed the destruction of documents/tapes/etc. relating to torture, while decisions on if and how to proceed are being worked out.

Many will remember how Oliver North (when the crimes of Iran-Contra were being uncovered) and Alberto Gonzales (when White House involvement in the Valerie Plame affair was becoming clearer) made such good use of the days of hiatus between the announced decision to investigate and the belated order to safeguard all evidence from destruction.

One would think that Attorney General Eric Holder, or President Barack Obama himself, would have long since issued such an order.

Indeed, the absence of such an order would suggest they would just as soon avoid as many of the painful truths about torture as they can.

The issue would seem particularly urgent in the wake of Obama’s gratuitous get-out-of-jail free card issued to CIA personnel complicit in torture. They might well draw the (erroneous) conclusion that they have been, in effect, pardoned by the president and thus are within the law in destroying relevant evidence—to the degree that being within the law matters any more. …snip…

[R]etired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, told Frontline on December 13, 2005 that “up to 100 detainees had died while in detention. Of that 100, some 27 have been declared officially homicides.” Those running Bush administration interrogations are no doubt aware by now that the War Crimes Act (18 U.S. Code 2441) passed by a Republican-controlled Congress in 1996 provides that the death penalty can be given to those responsible for the deaths of detainees.

And yet, the President Obama struck not an angry, but rather a defensive tone on the recent release of the four torture documents issued by the Mafia-style lawyers of the Justice Department. This seems rather odd coming from a professor of constitutional law. The president and his advisers have appeared almost apologetic in explaining/justifying the release.

In the face of Rush Limbaugh/Dick Cheney-type charges that the revelations endanger national security, the White House explains that most of the information was already in the public domain (in the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross, for example).

Hey, Mr. constitutional law professor and now president, how about the fact that the Freedom of Information Act requires your administration to release such information.

How about acknowledging that you are just doing your sworn duty to enforce the law—or is that notion quaint, obsolete, or somehow passé these days? …snip…

The president and his advisers have appeared almost apologetic in explaining/justifying the release.

Not “almost” apologetic. Most definitely apologetic – in his statement last Thursday and his cheerleading visit to the CIA on Monday. If he could have patted them all on the head while saying ‘there, there…’ he would have done it.

Speaking of Israel… here is a self serving article in the UK TImes, last night, how Israel backed off its use of WP due to Times reporting. Such guff. A nip and tuck at the ugly face of OUR PARTNER, for domestic propaganda purposes. The reporting that we used WP inside Iraq is convincing (next up, Africa!). Such guff, again.

Don’t miss the comments:

The IDF admits above to phosphorus in “Mortar shells fired by ground forces and 76mm rounds fired from naval …” . Your own photo in the January 8 link above shows 155mm heavy artillery phosphorus rounds each weighting about 10 times as much as the rounds the IDF admits.
Pathetic.

David, Edinburgh,

“Until now the IDF has denied the Times accounts”

The Israeli government have no credibility whatsoever. Even after The Times obtained and published the photographs they continued their denials about the use of white phosphorous.

Manny Goldstein, London, UK

They stopped using phosphorus, which they claimed they never used in first place !
Sounds like a cheap ploy to divert attention from war crimes and atrocities committed by IDF .

Eric, San Francisco, US

I have a lot to say on Israel’s behalf; they’re fighting an enemy prepared to attack Israeli civilians with rocket and motar attacks, they’re fighting in a densely populated urban area and their enemy hides amongst its own civilian population.But breaking the Geneva Convention? Both them and the US!

Chris, Brisbane, Australia

Disgraceful.Place has become an axis of evil all on its own.People need peace not endless wars.No winners in wars.

President Barack Obama’s visit to Capitol Hill for the Holocaust Day of Remembrance ceremony turned into more than just a solemn memorial event Thursday morning. As the president sat waiting for his turn at the podium, a series of speakers admonished him, in terms both veiled and direct, to confront Iran’s government as a threat to Jews and to Israel.

“Honoring the dead must not be the sole purpose of remembrance. It must help us shape a better future,” said Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor. “When a regime is again … terrorizing its neighbors, threatening to destroy the Jewish people, how will we meet this challenge before it’s too late?”

Meridor kept his message implicit, but the subtext was clear: The world must stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

They are the only people who’ve every suffered, and are thus licensed to threaten and oppress anybody they feel is in their way.

There is some talk around that the new Amb frorm Israel to the US will be Michael Oren. A dual… from fucking Chicago iirc. A hardliner asshole propgandist…. I caught him ion NPR during Gaza war and was HORRIFIED, so I googled and posted what I found on him then.

This whole drama is shaping up as a case of American exceptionalism one cannot believe in. Without accepting full responsibility for torture – and illegal, pre-emptive wars – and without accountability, there can be no catharsis in America. Obama is enough of a smart operator to know that if his “going forward” is perceived like “look the other way”, this whole thing will come back to haunt and even destroy his presidency. And if it walks and talks like a whitewash, that’s because it must be … a whitewash.

Supposing the Obama Justice Department appoints a special prosecutor and we end up with the “Bush Six” or even Bush-era top dogs in the slammer, and not only a few minions and go-betweens, the whole Washington establishment would literally collapse – a Tower of Babel of scum and corruption. Would Obama ever muster the balls to carry it out? That’s unlikely.

That would mean in practice burying the American empire – and as Obama has provided plenty of proof in his nearly 100 days in power (from the Afghan surge to his CIA coddling) he doesn’t want to go down in history as the man who unraveled the American empire. Seize the moment? No, he won’t.[and all thru the GE and the primaries, he never said he would, he always was – and is – a prevaricator —Mcat] All that’s left for the rest of walking humanity is just the dream of shipping Cheney to a really accomplished destination – The Hague, so he can be duly tried for treason and crimes against humanity.

Pepe might want to remember he supported Ob, exhorted the vote for him. And generally sounded like a fucking loon in 2008. I think he filed a few too many reports from the Riviera… and began to think he was part of the rootless rich.

TAPPER: This week two different independent nonpartisan government watchdogs have — the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general for TARP — have expressed serious concerns about the amount of — or the lack of oversight into how money is being spent, both stimulus and the toxic assets program, and also TARP and other programs. These are people who do this for a living. They are — they are watchdogs, and they conduct oversight, and they’re saying you guys are not doing enough. And specifically the inspector general for TARP said that the Treasury Department has told them that they will not follow their previous recommendations to demand that the banks account for all the use of TARP funds, set up internal controls to comply with the accounting and report periodically to Treasury on the results with sworn certifications. Why are you — what are you guys going to do to follow these recommendations to conduct as much oversight as they’re recommending?

GIBBS: Well, let me — I’ll ask Treasury for something specific on — on what you mentioned based on what GAO has mentioned. The president — the president is concerned and wants to ensure accountability in the process. I — I will — like I said, I’ll look for a specific answer to what you mentioned there. But I think based on the testimony of Secretary Geithner, there is an inclination among all in the administration to pursue greater transparency and greater accountability. I don’t know about that specifically, but I’ll certainly check.

TAPPER: The inspector general for TARP on Monday testified that — that Treasury has blown off their recommendations that the bank, that they…

GIBBS: I think Secretary Geithner addressed some of that on — I don’t know, I forget whether he was up there Monday or Tuesday. Like I said, they all blur together. I’ll find something specifically on that.

Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday evening, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick “the right person” as its copyright czar.

Just days after four Pirate Bay defendants were found guilty in Sweden, Biden warned of the harms of piracy at a private event organized by the Motion Picture Association of America in the sumptuous, newly renovated Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

“It’s pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people as consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of income,” Biden said, according to a White House pool report.

Biden blasted China, saying its intellectual property laws remain “largely ineffective” and will end up “strangling their own creative juices,” and compared it to what he described as India’s more effective anti-piracy regime. He singled out Canada, a close U.S. ally, as needing stronger laws; it never signed the treaty that led to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and a proposal to adopt anti-circumvention restrictions was never adopted.

He also addressed President Obama’s forthcoming decision about who will be named the intellectual-property enforcement coordinator, better known as the copyright czar. Copyright industry lobbyists sent a letter Monday to the president asking him to pick someone sympathetic to their concerns, while groups that would curb copyright law sent their own letter urging the opposite approach.

We “will find the right person for intellectual property czar,” Biden said.

Under a law approved by the U.S. Congress last October, Obama is required to appoint someone to coordinate the administration’s IP enforcement efforts and prepare annual reports.

On copyright, President Obama has signaled a more pro-industry approach than his predecessor, which has alarmed advocates of less restrictive laws.

The president chose as top Justice Department officials the music industry attorney who pulled the plug on Grokster and another longtime Recording Industry Association of America ligitator. The Obama administration recently sided with the RIAA in a file-sharing suit, and Biden was a staunch RIAA and MPAA ally as a U.S. senator.

“I think sometimes you underestimate the impact you have, and not just entertaining but uplifting,” Biden told the audience at the MPAA event. “I wish I could inspire the way you do.”

After having created the great handshake scene, the Obama administration then didn’t know what to do with their own public relations coup that could have been followed up with real changes in policy. It was sad to see the immediate backpedaling from the administration over a smile and a handshake. One official claimed that Chavez was less popular than Obama among Venezuelans. David Axelrod said that Venezuela must stop “rampant and tasteless, anti-Americanism.”

Chavez is not alone in his willingness to take on Uncle Sam. Almost all of the member nations of the Organization of American States are in favor of Cuba rejoining that organization. They are also agitating for the United States led embargo of Cuba to end.

None of the new leaders are unduly deferential to Barack Obama. Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, bristled at the United States criticism of Cuba’s human rights record. He pointed out, “The United States doesn’t have any authority to speak about democracy, because from over there they install coup d’etats, like these civil coups now in Bolivia.” Morales and Chavez will not be lectured by a president who allowed Bush regime torturers to get away with their war crimes scott free.

The bankruptcy of United States foreign policy was on full display for all to see. Osama’s actions and the words of his top advisers prove that they do not want partnerships with other nations that are based on any kind of mutual interest. If foreign leaders object to American policy they are demonized and attacked and the corporate media dutifully joins in and repeats whatever the president says.
The American people are once again dependent on the rest of the world to tell them anything of significance. Hugo Chavez made Open Veins of Latin America an overnight bestseller and in the process proved that many Americans realize they aren’t getting the full story of the country’s history.

That is why Hugo Chavez should be lionized more than anyone who manages to get into the white house. American presidents are elected because a critical mass of wealthy people choose them before any voter arrives at a polling place. While Hugo Chavez rewrites history, Obama has no clue and no desire to join him in revolutionizing American foreign policy. We are left with a one party foreign policy. Fortunately, people in other parts of the world are able to make better choices.

Mice, furred division is on-going. I am pretty sure at one point I had 7 or 8. Gasp. Pretty sure I am down to 2, maybe 3. What a struggle.

I was lulled because in 2002 I think it was, I had just the one that stayed a few weeks in the kitchen in mid winter and very low key, no good bye, left in spring. Not so this go round. Madman reminded me NO CAT IN THE HOUSE… and that it made a difference. I think it did.

I have 7 of the plexiglass panoramic view humane traps… a neighbor lent me his 4 and I got three.

I think the real reason my population is down, good weather and they left on their own.

we don’t get squirrels here… they seem happy enough in the park across the street. my aunt in georgia fed all her squirrels, they’d march right in the [open] doors that led to the garden… look up with a… i’m here! you know what that means!, look… :lol: they’d arrive pretty early too…

we used to have a regular tour of pigeons here… far fewer now. I miss them. Two have returned to my back fence,, just this week… I hope they will stay a while. My mother used to feed the pigeons, pie pans of cut up bread from a window, they would fly up to greet her. Til the neighbors made a stink. Literally turned her in, she got some kind of official letter. Frankly if I could set boa constrictors [charged with a mission] in a few yards I would.

I had tiny starlings I think it was, living in a cubby hole under the eaves of one of the windows… they had a little nest in there… very sweet it was.

it’s illegal now to feed anything. Old people who worry about the pigeons have developed ways of slowly trickling tiny seed from their hands as they walk along. Lest they be warned, cited, then charged and fined.

The most I could do is baby sit a cat… but I went thru the expected routine in my mind for Pets Unlimited, if I were to call…, where some cats got vet care for 30, 40 years from this house. My mother used to donate a minumum of 100.00 a month to them (no kill shelter).. Baby was cared for there, and I paid a technician to pill her and take her for visits when I could no longer.

You would think I could call up and say pull the file for this address… and ask to borrow a cat. The rigamarole I would have to go thru would be ridiculous.

If i can keep ti at two… I think I think I have two babies, or juniors by now… and one “adult”, it won’t be a big problem. When I realised I had a lot, I did freak a little, mostly due to reproduction issues.

I can say that my crew much much much preferred the Oroweat Potato Bread to the sprouted and seeded, whole grain, multigrain alternatives I offered. :roll:

We’d get some version of the 911 Commission. Wiht slob Lee Hamilton, for one, it. Keane another. Lehman another. Poor slob Cleland looked angry one day, actually angry… and Bush et al co-opted any chance of that boiling over, they whisked him off with an offer of a Directorship at the Import Export Bank. He was gone in a day.

Other shills, sell outs and Leaders of the Long Time Oligarchy. Meese for one.

[A]t a White House meeting Thursday, President Obama told Congressional leaders that he thinks it would be a mistake to set up a commission to investigate excesses of the Bush administration’s war on terror.

“The president said that given all that’s on the agenda and the pressing issues facing the country, that a backward-looking investigation would not be productive,” a White House official who attended the session said. “The president was very clear…that he believes it’s important that there’s not a witch hunt.” …

Very very funny:

The White House aide said Obama quipped that public discussion of the interrogation question seemed pretty vigorous, thanks in large part to former vice president Dick Cheney.

“The president said jokingly that Dick Cheney was working pretty hard to ensure his side was heard in the public debate,” the official said…..

And it keeps going.

Sources said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her support for a “truth commission,” but her comments came near the end of the 90-minute session, after Obama had already thrown cold water on the idea. At another point in the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed support for Obama’s position that a broad-ranging inquiry would be an unhelpful distraction.

Obama was intent on building some bipartisan bonhomie during the meeting, the White House aide said. The president thanked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for his efforts to expedite the nomination process and expressed appreciation to Boehner for his efforts on new legislation expanding a national community service program. …

Don’t want anything backwards that would be unhelpful for the bonhomie. And let’s keep it all a FUCKING JOKE.

In a year or two, if the economy worsens, and the population blames someone! whoever that may be, you can hear the pundits prepping their “come down” lines. Brooks’ will be, “oh he tried too much, he was overstretched, I warned him, I did”.

And they will shake their hoop skirts… and order up a mint julep.

It is all so old.

[Brooks does say he/Ob si a cultural conservative, on that he is RIGHT about the born again people elected]

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama and top aides debated the commission issue about two weeks ago and Obama concluded that any such proposal was likely to bog down in politics.

“The president determined the concept didn’t seem altogether workable in this case,” Gibbs said at a briefing for reporters. “The last few days might be evidence of why something like this might just become a political back and forth.” …

Don’t miss the last line. It is just so special

n response to a reporter’s question on Tuesday, Obama said an independent panel would be preferable to the normal congressional hearing process because the latter was likely to break down along party lines. “To the extent that there are independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take,” the president said. At a briefing that day, Gibbs also cited the 9/11 Commission as a “model” of how such a panel “might be set up.”

While Obama did say Tuesday said he was “not suggesting” the creation of such a commission, his public suggestions about how it could be done was seen by many as a tacit endorsement of an idea long dismissed by top Obama aides.

Gibbs indicated Thursday that Obama should not have engaged in public speculation about something he doesn’t favor.

“It was assuaging your predilection of hypotheticals,” Gibbs told Fox reporter Major Garrett. “Trust me,” the press secretary said emphatically, “there’ll be no more of that.”

So.

At the age of 86, Noam Chomsky remains as active as ever in his work as a world-renowned political dissident and pioneering linguist. He has also opened a new chapter in his life, recently celebrating a one-year anniversary with his new wife, Valeria Wasserman Chomsky, his second marriage. Chomsky discusses the joys of newfound love and why it is a "pri […]

Noam Chomsky weighs in on the Black Lives Matter movement across the United States, calling it a response to the unresolved consequences of slavery and racism dating back hundreds of years. "[Slavery] is a large part of the basis for our wealth and privilege," Chomsky says. "Is there a slave museum in the United States? The first one is just b […]

Following its election in January on a pledge to confront the austerity program that's decimated Greece's economy, the Syriza government has faced a major pushback from international creditors led by Germany. Days after Greece secured a four-month extension to a loan package in exchange for new conditions on its spending, Noam Chomsky says the Euro […]

World-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky discusses why National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden should be welcomed back to the United States as a hero and why those who authorized the government surveillance he exposed should be on trial, not him. Chomsky also argues that while mass surveillance has been ineffective i […]

The Islamic State might be the best-funded radical Islamist group, perhaps in history, but the coalition air campaign that’s targeting its oil-refining operations and military assets has begun to damage…Click to Continue »

Former Iraqi War general David Petraeus is pleading guilty to mishandling classified information, apparently avoiding an embarrassing trial that would have included his affair with Paula Broadwell, according to documents…Click to Continue »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned a joint session of Congress on Tuesday that a potential deal with Iran will not prevent the country from securing nuclear weapons, threatening “the…Click to Continue »

At the annual American-Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, speakers advanced Iran as an existential threat and sought to downplay differences between Israel and the US while demonstrators were arrested outside

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bipartisan talks on a bill to streamline the passage of trade deals through Congress are "stuck" over Democratic demands, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday against accepting a nuclear deal with Iran that would be a "countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare" by a country that "will always be an enemy of America".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner cleared the way for a vote as soon as Tuesday on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year, dealing a blow to conservative Republicans who wanted to include language blocking President Barack Obama's immigration actions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have violated federal records laws by using a personal email account for all of her work messages, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.